


Faded Photographs

by daikenkai



Series: SP Drabble Bomb [7]
Category: South Park
Genre: Blended family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Religion, South Park Drabble Bomb, are you really surprised i wrote about a goth kid, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 05:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daikenkai/pseuds/daikenkai
Summary: When had he started to care what she was like? Growing up he hadn't given a single fuck as to what his mother was like but after finding a photo of her he decides he wants a shrine of her. Making one will involve talking to his stepmother.Photograph for the May 2018 Drabble Bomb!





	Faded Photographs

**Author's Note:**

> **Photograph**.
> 
> Author's Note: When "Goth Kids 3: Rise of the Posers" came out there was discourse as to Michael's ethnicity. I am in no way whitewashing him, but the infamous "love never worked for my mom and dad; why should it work for me?" made me think she might be a stepmom and he's bitter. Plus I'm all for more blended families in South Park. If it comes out that he is, in fact, half-Asian, then think of this fic as an AU!
> 
> I researched Buddhism and the shrines they devote to their loved ones but if there's something I got wrong, please let me know so I can rectify it. :)
> 
> thanks to SakataRi for looking this over for me. <3
> 
> Enjoy my final drabble for May!

Michael admittedly didn't know much about his stepmother or the religion she practiced. He always had it in his head that she wasn't his “real” mom so he didn't have to listen to her. He never got the chance to have a one-on-one relationship with his mother but now he was expected to act like  _ she  _ had been there the whole time. Ugh. 

He was a shitty kid, okay?

As he got older, her shrine — a  _ butsudan _ , he learned it was called — haunted him. When his mother passed, it was as if his dad moved on like she had never existed — much like how he was when his parents got divorced in the first place. It shaped him so deeply that he assumed everything would be like that. After all, it hadn’t worked for his parents; why should it work for him? Fuck, he was getting off-topic. The shrine. His dad always told him it was “disrespectful” to want to add his mother’s photo to the shrine so he kept a scrapbook full of her photos shoved away in his bedroom.

He didn’t understand the religion when he was a kid and he wasn’t sure he did now either, but he at least knew enough to approach her about the subject; yet when to do it was the bigger question. Asking your stepmother to help you make a butsudan for your late mother you never really knew was a bit much.

Maybe he’d do it today as he stared at a photo of the three of them: his mother, his dad and him. Michael was a baby in the photo, and his parents were cooing over him in the hospital. He apparently came out of the womb with a look of disdain, that Goth aura dripping from every frame.

He looked through others in his scrapbook, some of his parents, some just of her, and he wondered what she was like. Was she like him? Was she kind? Did he get his curly hair from her?

When had he started to care what she was like? Growing up he couldn't have given a single fuck about her or what she was like. She divorced his dad, and then the accident had happened when he was too young to remember or understand; that was all his dad had told him. Not to mention it gave him more of a reason to become Goth with his own brand of personal angst.

Now that he was older, college on the horizon, it might be worth a shot. He got to work researching and spent all day slumped over his laptop, taking notes.

 

* * *

 

 

It was either now or never. Michael went through all the photos of his mother and found a headshot where she was smiling at the camera. Perfect. 

He held the photo gingerly between his fingers to keep it pristine as he trampled down the stairs.

Etsuko was sitting on the living room couch with her tea, eyes glued to the game show she was watching. Michael sat down next to her, photo turned over in his lap.

“Etsuko?”

She looked up at Michael, with the same look she always gave him: you’re a disappointment. He was well aware.

“I want you to teach me about Buddhism. I want to make a butsudan for my mom.” He showed her the photo for evidence, as if he knew she thought he was playing a prank on her. The unsteadiness in his voice should have been all the evidence she needed, but Michael didn’t blame her distrust. Their relationship was rocky, for lack of a better term.

“You want... to convert?”

“NO, what? Fuck no, I hate religion. I mean if I was gonna practice anything, Buddhism is pretty chill…” He could see her losing interest. Sigh. “I want to put up a shrine for my mom but I’m not such a shit that I’ll do it disrespectfully. So just... teach me how?”

 

* * *

 

Michael’s shrine was set up next to Etsuko’s, his housed in a cabinet, candles and tea lights set up around his mom's photo. Etsuko explained it was tradition to bring a gift to the shrine (usually food) so Michael had a small bag of rice at the altar when he went to pay his respects for the first time. 

“Buddha, you’re pretty cool and stuff. I don’t do this much, but like. I didn’t know my mom. I’m starting to miss the idea of her so if you could just. Make sure she’s okay, wherever she is, that’d be cool. Amen? Fuck.” He stood and shook his head as he lit the incense, sure that he looked so stupid. When he looked at the shrine he couldn’t help but smile a bit, knowing he’d done something and done it right.

Etsuko and his dad gave him privacy but they were close enough that they could hear him praying, the both of them beaming. So maybe their relationship would never be what Michael’s dad wanted it to be, but he liked to think there was an understanding between them now.  

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr](http://xigbarf.tumblr.com)!


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